


Maps and Flags: Symbols and Progress in The First Avenger

by Franzbibliothek



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Gen, Meta, ever notice how maps and flags are everywhere in TFA?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:38:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5945932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzbibliothek/pseuds/Franzbibliothek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flag, arrows, and cars all appear repeatedly throughout Captain America: The First Avenger. While these objects all serve practical purposes, I would argue that they function symbolically as well. After all story-wise the film is about forward momentum, about Steve Rogers getting somewhere, and the recurring of these objects reinforce that theme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maps and Flags: Symbols and Progress in The First Avenger

**Author's Note:**

> I was making a fanvid and noticed that flags and maps and arrows were basically everywhere in the design of the film and since I haven't seen anyone talk about it I thought I'd delve into it a little. Unfortunately my writing style is a little wooden and academic-y, hopefully this doesn't obscure my points. Sorry about the lack of in-text citations.
> 
> Also while writing this I noticed that a lot of Peggy and Steve's scenes together take place in vehicles. I can't think of a compelling thesis as to why the film makers did this, but if someone could write this up that would be great! Send me a link!

While Captain America: The First Avenger does not have the striking visual effects of its contemporary Thor, it does do an impressive job of using symbols to convey one of the key ideas of the film: moving forward. Steve Rogers as a character is constantly depicted as striving to get somewhere or something, often both, and ultimately at the conclusion of the film travels further than he possibly could have imagined. Throughout the film there is a constant feeling of forward momentum. A number of different elements contribute to this: the pulsing triumphant score, the long still shots of Steve Rogers running, the multiple montages, and most notably for the purposes of this essay, the recurring appearance of flags, maps, vehicles and arrows, all objects associated with travel and navigation. Flags and maps also have nationalistic connotations, making them especially appropriate in a film about a person who is supposed to represent nationalistic ideals.

Before the film was released a number of articles were published focusing on the claim by director Joe Johnston that this was not a “flag waving” movie. Despite this statement there are certainly a large number of flags that appear in the film, waving or otherwise. So if they are not there for nationalistic titillation, what other purpose could there be for the large number of flags that appear throughout the film? They often are seen in association with what Steve Rogers is striving for, his goals, the metaphorical forward movement of the story. At the beginning we see a dejected Steve watching newsreels, the first image is a large flag with a swastika on it. It serves as visual shorthand for the Nazi threat, but also is our first glimpse at Steve's desire to fight all bullies, not just Nazis, made clear by his fight with Hodge the cinema bully only a few minutes later. When Steve goes to the recruiting center at the World Fair which leads to him meeting Dr. Erskine, the center is unsurprisingly covered in flags, in one frame I was able to count four. Everything within the frame is planned, so making sure that as many American flags as possible were visible as Steve is about to make his first step to becoming Captain America was very deliberate. Later in basic training when the trainees are asked to grab a flag off the flag pole, it is Steve who figures out how to get it using his intelligence. Look at the way the scene was framed, with the camera set far ahead from Steve so that when the flag pole falls over it creates a horizontal line that Steve then walks forward to receive. It is a clear visual representation of the forward progression of his story. The capturing of the flag in that moment represents an instance when a goal is achieved when all other exercises previously shown in the Camp Leigh montage had ended in failure. Then in becoming Captain America for the ISO Steve Rogers becomes a literal walking flag. This adoption of the Captain America persona also brings him a step closer to his ultimate goal in fighting in the war effort. After the creation of the Howling Commandos the audience sees the flags representing Hydra bases are being removed, corresponding once more with the idea that flags symbolize Steve's goals, in this case the Hydra bases that Steve infiltrates and destroys. Whenever a flag appears Steve Rogers is often one step closer to achieving his ambition at that point in the film.

This interpretation of flags also provides insight to Red Skull's line at the end of “I have seen the future, Captain! There are no flags!” To which Steve quips “Not my future”. On a literal level it turns out there are still flags when Steve gets to the future. On the sub-textual level this line could be read as simply a nationalistic reassertion of the continuance of an independent America. However if we accept that flags in Captain America: The First Avenger function as representations of goals and self-determination, then Steve is instead advocating for the continuance of individual will more than a nationalistic identity. Not only does this seem to fit Steve's character better, it also corresponds with a major theme of the Captain America franchise. As Hydra is depicted across both Captain America films as trying to destroy the ability of individuals to make their own choices.

Maps and arrows are tools for navigation and their presence throughout the film suggests that Steve Rogers is traveling towards a particular destination. The destination is pointed out early in the film by Bucky Barnes: the future. The first map of the film is actually shown in the prologue when the Red Skull locates the Cosmic Cube by looking at Yggdrasil the World Tree, which is a map of all the nine realms, of which earth (or Midgard) is one. This at once ties in with Thor, and sets the idea that travel and movement will play an important role throughout the film. Later at basic training the flag that Steve brings down at is triangular like an arrow and shot in such a way that it makes Steve move forward. During the rescue sequence when Dr. Zola is escaping the camera pans and lingers on a map in the background. Soon after Steve as is in the middle of rescuing Bucky, the scene is interrupted by Steve looking at the same map. Later a scene is opened by a pan over another map as Steve relays information to Peggy Carter. This is quite a lot of attention to spend on a prop considering that the specific locations of the bases are not important information for the audience to know. Therefore it is the image of the map itself that is the intended impression, once more reinforcing the importance of travel throughout the film. At the end this becomes even more apparent when the ship the Valkyrie happens to be shaped like a giant arrow. According to The Art of Captain America: The First Avenger, the plane was designed with its wings angled so far back to give it an attractive silhouette. Still this does not negate the fact that it is a giant arrow in a movie filled with many arrows that is literally propelling Steve Rogers to his final destination. In addition, right as Steve makes his decision to put the ship in the water he looks at a radar screen of the ship, which is also represented by an arrow on the screen. It might be worthwhile to mention that no maps or arrows appear in the epilogue of the film after Steve Rogers has arrived at his “destination” so to speak.

There is also another significance in having maps and flags regularly appear in a Captain America film. Not only is Captain America basically dressed up in a flag, in a more general sense maps and flags are abstractions of reality, man-made representations of nations. Just as Captain America is a man-made man, both in the sense that he was created through a government experiment, and the literal character of Captain America was created to build patriotic fervor and sell war-bonds.

Vehicles, especially cars, feature very prominently in a number of the film's vital scenes. When Steve gets the flag in his first real success at basic training, foreshadowing his eventual success as the chosen subject of the experiment, he is depicted being taken away in a car. Later there is an extended sequence of Steve and Peggy conversing in a car as he is being conveyed to the experiment, this is the last scene before Steve Rogers becomes Captain America. After Dr. Erskine is shot there is an extended car chase, something not present any of his comic origins where the Nazi spy is typically dispatched in the laboratory itself. The door of the vehicle is in fact later used as a shield further linking the connection between the vehicle and Steve's progression, in this case in becoming Captain America. When Steve learns of Bucky's capture we see him initially loading up a car to take for the mission. The car ends up being inconsequential, so its appearance, like many of the maps, I would contest is purely for its symbolic value alerting the viewer that this is a pivotal moment of progression for the story. This is especially true in the sequence where Red Skull and Dr. Zola are escaping and stop to have an argument over how Dr. Zola is supposed to get out. It is concluded when Red Skull gives Dr. Zola keys to his car which is shown briefly as Dr. Zola drives away in it. This scene not only foreshadows the car's importance later in the story, but also takes place at the point in the story when Steve Rogers truly becomes Captain America in rescuing the 107th. The train sequence where Bucky “dies” has importance not just for the film's story arc, but for the franchise as a whole, and like the car chase scene does not take place in any of the Captain America comics. This addition of a fast-moving vehicle was included just for the film, and once more marks a highly pivotal moment not only in giving Steve the personal motivation to take down Hydra once and for all, but also is the mechanism for an incredibly central piece of the franchise as a whole. Towards the climax of the film Steve is driven in a car that chases after the plane that leads directly to him being frozen. Throughout the film vehicles have featured in pivotal plot moments reinforcing this idea of forward momentum and travel as Steve Rogers is conveyed into the future.

While Captain America: The First Avenger does not have Thor’s Shakespearean grandness, it does utilize the presence of flags, maps, arrows, and vehicles into symbols which support one of its central ideas: moving forward.

Works Cited

Captain America: The First Avenger. Dir. Joe Johnston. Marvel Studios, 2011. DVD.

Jenson, Jeff. “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Entertainment Weekly. 22 April 2011: 61-61. Print. Academic Search Complete. Web. 26 Jan. 2016.

Boucher, Geoff. “COMIC-CON 2010: ‘Captain America’ director has different spin on hero: ‘He’s not a flag-waver’.” Hero Complex. Los Angeles Times, 21 July 2010. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.

Marvel Comics. The Art of Captain America: The First Avenger. New York: Marvel, 2011. Print.

“Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Movie Script.” Springfield Springfield. n.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2016.


End file.
